Overcriminalization alert: a Republican House member has introduced HR 3011, which would make it a felony to "without written permission, use the words, acronyms, or symbols of those agencies on apparel or in a publication 'in a matter that is reasonably calculated to convey the impression that the wearer of the item of apparel is acting pursuant to the legal authority of' the agencies or 'to convey the impression' that the written materials 'is approved, endorsed, or authorized by' the agencies."

Government agencies may be creeping on their own employees by demanding usernames and passwords to social networking sites such as Facebook. Interestingly, this violates Facebook's own terms of service, as Facebook "prohibit(s) anyone from soliciting the login information or accessing an account belonging to someone else" In this writer's opinion, these government agencies would seem to be also violating the federal governments own proposed laws that would prohibit anybody from misrepresenting themselves on the internet.

SB 1246 by Sen. Jim Norman, R-Tampa, would make it a first-degree felony to photograph a farm without first obtaining written permission from the owner. A farm is defined as any land "cultivated for the purpose of agricultural production, the raising and breeding of domestic animals or the storage of a commodity."

In the war on drugs, federal grant programs like the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program have encouraged state and local law enforcement agencies to boost drug arrests in order to compete for millions of dollars in funding. Agencies receive cash rewards for arresting high numbers of people for drug offenses, no matter how minor the offenses or how weak the evidence.

FINALLY and thanks to Rudy Giuliani, private security can be purchased that has the full authority of the law. There are still a few details that separate this arrangement from truly voluntarist protection organizations. The officer is indemnified by the taxpayer, not the customer or the customer's insurance. They do have the ability to arrest, though, so it's close.

Local and state tax collectors have added a new tool to their arsenal to locate tax cheats. The agencies have gone to Facebook and MySpace looking for those who have failed in paying their share of taxes. According to one report the tax collecting agencies are finding it a great tool in locating those who post their profiles and share their location, new job status and how much they are making.

United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) - the federal agency in charge of protecting other agencies from computer intruder - was found riddled with hundreds of high-risk security holes on its own systems, according to the results of an audit released Wednesday. US-CERT, monitors the Einstein intrusion-detection sensors on nonmilitary government networks, and helps other civil agencies respond to hack attacks. It also issues alerts on the latest software security holes, so that everyone from the White House to the FAA can react quickly to install workarounds and patches.